NASA released a ton of data to help developing nations prepare for global warming

To help developing countries as well as communities in the United States prepare for the impacts of global warming, NASA on released a vast database of climate modeling simulation results on Tuesday that provide high resolution details of what our future climate may look like.

The NASA data, which includes simulations from 21 different computer models, is part of the Obama administration's effort to push climate adaptation policies forward at the same time as it works to cut emissions of global warming pollutants like carbon dioxide, thereby lessening the magnitude of warming.

The idea behind opening up these resources is that it will help developing countries that are far more vulnerable to many climate impacts than industrialized countries are, largely because of a lack of capacity to anticipate and withstand such effects, including sea level rise.

The NASA data includes information from 21 different computer models, including how temperature and precipitation patterns may shift depending on greenhouse gas emissions through 2100. The data has an extremely high resolution of 15.5 miles, which allows the projections to shed light on potential conditions down to the scale of individual cities and towns.

NASA says this information will help scientists and planners conduct climate risk assessments to better understand extreme events such as droughts, floods, heat waves and swings in agricultural output.

NASA climate projection for daily high temperature in the year 2100 under a "business as usual" emissions scenario.

Image: NASA

“NASA is in the business of taking what we’ve learned about our planet from space and creating new products that help us all safeguard our future,” said NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan, in a press release. “With this new global dataset, people around the world have a valuable new tool to use in planning how to cope with a warming planet.”

The models consider two different futures, one in which emissions increase in a roughly business as usual scenario, and one in which emissions of global warming pollutants, chiefly carbon dioxide, are dramatically curtailed.

The new data comes from NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

Broader White House climate resilience goals rolled out

The NASA initiative is part of a broader climate resilience program the White House announced on Tuesday, which includes $34 million in financial and in-kind contributions from the U.S. government and partner institutions such as the American Red Cross, Google, Esri, the Skoll Global Threats Fund and the British government.

Known as the Climate Services for Resilient Development initiative, the program is aimed at supporting countries that lack the capacity to anticipate the impacts of global warming-related severe weather extremes, sea level rise and other phenomena.

The initiative is proceeding to a pilot stage with programs to support climate-resilience set to launch in Colombia, Ethiopia and Bangladesh, the White House said in a fact sheet to reporters.

NASA climate model projection for daily temperatures in South America in 2100 under a "business as usual" emissions scenario.

Image: NASA

NASA's 11-terabyte contribution to the effort is unique, since it will enable scientists in other countries to take climate data that is normally only available at the global level and do what climate specialists refer to as "downscaling," which is a process that involves using modeling techniques to inform decision makers about how climate change may play out at far more local scales.

NASA's data and analysis tools are available to the public through the OpenNEX project, which is a cooperative program between NASA and Amazon to improve the public's access to climate information.

In announcing the broader climate resilience initiative, White House officials pointed to the fact that climate information needs and capabilities vary from one country to the next in the developing world.

"The Partnership that is launching today recognizes that no single entity is capable of addressing the vast needs for improved climate services across the world’s developing nations — and that needs may vary from country to country and region to region," Brian Deese, a senior advisor to the president, and John Holdren, the president's science advisor, wrote in a blog post.

So, while Ethiopia and Bangladesh cannot afford to devote billions of dollars into climate science programs at agencies like the Energy Department, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), now its scientists and government ministers can reap the benefits of state of the art climate research.

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